This month’s offering was extracted from the New York Times series “50 States/50 Fixes”.
Minnesota Teens Are Fighting Climate Anxiety With Shovels
Run by teenagers, for teenagers, the Green Crew helps students get their hands dirty with projects like tree planting, trail restoration and invasive species removal.
By Kate Selig
Photographs by Tim Gruber
Reporting from Bloomington, Minn.
- May 20, 2025
Early on a Saturday morning in Minnesota, a group of teenagers gathered at the edge of six acres of wooded, hilly land. Most were quiet, some blinking against the sun. They were robotics enthusiasts, aspiring marine scientists, artists, athletes and Scouts.
What they shared was a desire for hands-on conservation work, a meaningful response for many of them to their worries about climate change.
“Cool,” said Sophia Peterson, the group’s 18-year-old leader, who faced the crowd with a grin. “Let’s get started.”
50 States, 50 Fixes is a series about local solutions to environmental problems. More to come this year.
The students were organized by the Green Crew, an environmental group founded by a teenager in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metro area. The organization seeks to help a generation that has grown up under the threat of climate change channel their fears into concrete action.
On this day, that meant pulling invasive plants, restoring trails and undertaking other projects on a slice of land owned by a conservation group in Bloomington, south of Minneapolis.
Since its founding three years ago, the Green Crew has grown into a network of about 50 students from several high schools that enlist hundreds of volunteers. This year, more than 2,000 people are expected to participate in projects that are designed, planned and executed by teenagers, with some help from adults.
Green Crew volunteers pulled weeds this month in Bloomington, Minn. About 50 students from several high schools have enlisted hundreds of volunteers for projects.
The Green Crew’s ambitions are growing beyond its home base. The group is in the process of starting three other chapters in the state and has received about two dozen inquiries from people across the country interested in replicating its model.
“I want to see them all around the country,” said Griffith Pugh, a freshman at Haverford College in Pennsylvania and a founding Green Crew member who continues to mentor students in the program.
The idea emerged in 2021 from a conversation between Joseph Barisonzi and his then-13-year-old daughter, Hannah. She was deeply worried about the effects of climate change, and was frustrated by the lack of opportunities for young people who wanted to help the environment.
During a car ride to summer camp, the two began brainstorming a new way for students to engage in hands-on conservation work. By the time they arrived, they had a plan.
“I know it sounds cheesy, but it reminds me that if I can do this, and the people around me can do this, then there are people in other places doing it, too.”
— Hannah Stockert Barisonzi, 17, Green Crew founder
The Green Crew officially began as a program of the Minnesota Valley Chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America, one of the country’s oldest conservation organizations, with Mr. Barisonzi as its adviser. The teenagers have monitored water quality, restored the habitat of the trillium, a native wildflower, and replaced trees in a low-income community that had been lost to an invasive beetle, among other projects.
Hannah, now 17, is most proud of a project in collaboration with a University of Minnesota researcher to identify strains of elm trees that were resistant to Dutch elm disease, which can devastate native species. She organized 300 volunteers to plant 83 trees over two days.
“It feels like I’m not just sitting around and doing nothing,” Hannah said. “It gives me hope.”
Emerging research supports what these teenagers are discovering for themselves. A study published in April surveying young people across the United States found that many were struggling with the reality of climate change, with the majority reporting moderate levels of distress.
More than 2,000 people are expected to participate in Green Grew projects this year.
But early research suggested that taking part in collective action could help reduce depression, anxiety and other negative feelings that can arise when thinking about climate change, according to Sarah Lowe, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health.
The Green Crew and similar groups “serve as a great model for youth to get involved, to not only address climate change but also to connect with other people around these issues,” Dr. Lowe said.
At the group’s final workday of this school year, about 40 volunteers split into teams and fanned out to different projects.
A group of boys sawed pipes and drilled holes in plastic squares to assemble platforms that would help track the spread of invasive mussels in nearby lakes. Three girls weeded a pollinator garden. Nearby, five Scouts built a retaining wall for an informational kiosk on conservation efforts.
Preparing a log to grow mushrooms, and volunteers with devices for monitoring zebra mussels.
Beside a trail leading down to the Minnesota River, Simon Meek, 14, stood on a hill in a white hard hat. He pointed out common buckthorn, an invasive species with glossy leaves and small, sharp thorns. It spreads through woods and fields, crowding out native plants and disrupting local ecosystems. Other teens were on their hands and knees, yanking up the plants through the underbrush.
Simon said he has trouble focusing in school, where it can be difficult to sit still or stay quiet. Other students sometimes give him odd looks, and teachers often ask him to stop. But with the Green Crew, he said, “I just get to be me.”
On that Saturday, he felt a special thrill: His father, Scott Meek, had joined him for the cleanup.
“I’ve seen my dad do yardwork,” Simon said. “He’s always telling me what to do. But today, he listened to me. He listened to me very well.”
Inspecting the root system of an invasive buckthorn plant that has been pulled from the ground.
Across the property in a red barn, Alex Rozumalski, 16, led volunteers through the process of growing mushrooms in logs. They drilled holes into oak logs, stuffed mycelium spawn inside and sealed them with beeswax to prevent them from drying out or getting contaminated. As they worked, the wax filled the air with the scent of honey.
“Fungus is my thing,” Alex said, a passion he developed during the pandemic. He became captivated by videos of professors discussing fungi, collected books on the subject and ventured into the woods alone to search for them. Through the Green Crew, he found a way to share his enthusiasm with others. The mushrooms they began growing, hen of the woods, could store carbon and help with nutrient cycling, Alex said.
He worked with careful precision, painting melted wax onto a log while keeping an eye on the other volunteers.
“Whoa, whoa,” he said, noticing a mistake. “You don’t need to use that much.”
“I can’t really hold myself back from talking about mushrooms.”
— Alex Rozumalski, 16
At the end of the workday, the volunteers gathered to consider their progress: The invasive mussel platforms had been assembled, the pollinator garden was cleared, the retaining wall was built, wheelbarrows of buckthorn had been removed, and parts of a hiking trail were mulched.
For these teenagers, however, the day was more than just a checklist of finished projects. They had a chance to regain agency, build connection and find hope in the face of a changing planet.
“Did everybody have fun?” Mr. Barisonzi asked.
“Yeah!” came the answer, a chorus of voices speaking as one.
